June 10, 2011

On Gaming & Teaching

I was a GM before I landed my current day job as a teacher of photography, and reflecting on the past several terms and my students’ comments in their post-class evaluations, I’ve come to realize something; a great part of my effectiveness at teaching comes from my experience in GM’ing. This is only part of the debt I owe to the influence of RPGs in my life.

Encourage Expression:Students are encouraged not only to take photographs, but to tell stories. To think in terms of story.

Make it a Game:Free exploration is encouraged. Competitiveness is encouraged. Posing learning problems for the students to solve is very much like GM’ing a dungeon crawl.

Be Approachable:Encourage a casual atmosphere where everyone’s comments and questions are welcome. Nobody asks a question when they believe there are negative consequences for doing so.

But like players in an RPG, students need to ask questions, and the GM/teacher needs to hear those questions. Questions mean engagement. Questions mean interest. Questions are springboards for going forward.

With my busy sked nowadays, I miss GM’ing games. But here’s a compensation: I get much the same kind of fun I had running games from teaching my classes. It’s not work, it’s play. Much better than the Gandalf Method*!

*The Gandalf Method of teaching is summed up by these four words: YOU SHALL NOT PASS!